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The kitchen at Renman’s house is flooded with the kind of aggressive, late-afternoon California sun that turns dust motes into tiny sparks. Their manager is standing by the stove, humming something indiscernible, but Mike’s focus is entirely fixed on the fabric tied around the man’s waist. The cook wears a yellow apron, a shade so bright and unforgiving it feels like a physical assault on Mike’s retinas. To anyone else, it’s just sunshine or lemon peel, but Mike can only correlate the color with an open wound.
It’s the bile-yellow of a bruise in its final, ugliest stage of healing. It’s the color of the nursery Mike’s parents painted for his brother, Ben—a room that always felt warmer, brighter, and more intentional than any corner of the house Mike occupied. Every time that apron flashes as Renman moves to stir a pot, Mike feels a phantom ache in his chest, a reminder of the "unfavorite" status he carried like a heavy backpack through his teenage years. It’s why the idea of a nursery of his own, of a tiny human depending on him, makes his stomach do a slow, nauseous roll. How can he be a father when he’s still trying to figure out how not to be the son who was always a second thought?
He leans his head back against the worn leather of the sofa, his fingers twitching rhythmically against his thighs as he taps out a tempo. The lyrics to the track they just birthed into the world leak out of him, a low, sandpaper rasp that barely carries over the sizzle of garlic in the other room.
🎶"Infected and disastrous
It breathes chaotic catastrophe
It cries to be renewed—"🎶
He’s lost in the internal mechanics of the song, the way the phrasings felt like a purge when they recorded them. He doesn't realize he's singing aloud until the couch cushions groan and a sudden weight shifts the air beside him. Brandon flops onto the couch with the grace of a landed fish, limbs tangling instantly with Mike’s. Before Mike can even blink, Brandon is there, leaning into his space with that wide, goofy grin that usually precedes a prank, but his voice comes out in a hoarse, theatrical croon that echoes Mike’s own:
🎶"Please renew me!"🎶
The sound is ragged—a byproduct of the vocal shredding Brandon put himself through during the S.C.I.E.N.C.E. sessions. Mike grins wickedly, the yellow-apron dread receding into the background as the reality of now takes over. This is his anchor. At twenty-one, with a wedding ring that still feels slightly novel on his finger after two years, Brandon is the only person who makes the world feel like it isn't waiting to collapse. Mike scrambles upward, climbing into Brandon's lap with an agile, practiced urgency. He’s all elbows and knees for a second before he settles, straddling Brandon’s thighs.
He possessively grabs Brandon's crotch through his heavy denim jeans, a blunt, grounding gesture that says mine without needing a single syllable. It’s a brand of intimacy—unfiltered, messy, and loud. However, the bravado of the grab softens almost instantly. The rest of Mike's body falls into a heavy, melting cuddle. He buries his face in the crook of Brandon’s neck, smelling the faint scent of sweat, American Spirit tobacco, and the patchouli oil Brandon likes to dab on his wrists. He begins to sloppily make out with him, their teeth clinking occasionally in their haste. Between wet, breathless kisses, Mike mumbles against Brandon’s lips, his voice thick with genuine awe.
"Dude, the bridge," Mike murmurs, his hand moving from Brandon's lap to cup the back of his head, fingers tangling in the soft hair. "Those screams on 'New Skin'... you sounded like you were being turned inside out. It’s fucking legendary, B. People are gonna lose their minds when they hear the full album."
Brandon beams, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks tired, but it’s a good kind of exhaustion—the kind that comes from creating something that feels like a revolution. "I just followed the riff, man. You gave me the map."
They’re supposed to be professional, or at least somewhat dignified, considering they’re at their manager's house, but they’ve never been good at the 'dignified' part. They are two twenty-one-year-olds who are deeply, obsessively in love, navigating the sudden velocity of a career that's beginning to arc toward the sun. Renman appears in the doorway, still clad in that cursed yellow apron, holding a wooden spoon like a scepter. He sees them tangled on the couch—a chaotic heap of baggy clothes and intertwined limbs—and he fondly rolls his eyes. It’s a look he’s perfected over the last couple of years, a mixture of "get a room" and "I'm glad you're happy."
"Hey, Lovebirds," Renman calls out, his voice cutting through the haze of their making out. "Clean up within the hour. Dinner will be ready soon, and I’m not serving it to a couple of guys who are halfway to a porn shoot on my furniture."
Mike pulls back just an inch, his lips swollen and red, a small smirk playing on his face. He looks at Brandon, then shifts his gaze back to Renman. For a moment, the yellow of the apron doesn't look like a wound. It just looks like a piece of cloth.
"We’re coming, we're coming," Brandon rasps, giving Mike’s hip an affectionate squeeze.
Renman lingers for a second, his expression softening as he looks at Mike. He’s known about Mike’s hesitations, the way he lingers at the edge of conversations about the future, about legacy, about kids. He gestures with the spoon toward Brandon. "Take care of him, Mike. In this industry, he's your hero, your son, your everything. Don't let the noise get too loud."
The phrase hits Mike like a physical weight—he's your hero, your son. The comparison of his husband to a child sends a jolt through him, but not the bad kind. It’s a reminder that caretaking doesn't have to be the toxic, competitive sport his parents played. It can just be this: holding onto someone so tightly that the yellow of the world stops looking like a bruise and starts looking like the dawn of something new.
Mike nods, tightening his grip on Brandon’s shirt. "I got him," he says firmly. "I always got him."
As Renman disappears back into the kitchen, Mike rests his forehead against Brandon’s. The infected and disastrous feelings of the past are still there, lurking in the shadows of his mind, but as long as the music is loud and Brandon is under him, he thinks he might just be able to be renewed after all.